Solvatten is providing innovative household water treatment solutions: solproject

Solar driven water purification in Nairobi slums

Kibera is the largest urban slum in Africa with an estimated population of about 800,000. Similar to other slums the poor households often have no access or insufficient access to safe water. Climate impacts such as floods and drought negatively impact the area’s water resources as the water and sanitation infrastructure gets damaged and the water supply contaminated, resulting in reduced water quality and increased water scarcity. This subsequently facilitates the transmission of waterborne diseases.

Solvatten is an innovative, but simple technology, which utilises solar radiation
(UV and heat) to purify water. Swedish Solvatten AB and the Institute of Environment and Water in Kenya aim to distribute the Solvatten technology to 2,500 households in Kibera, thereby securing 13,000 Kibera residents access to safe water. The targeted recipients will be vulnerable families, for example those headed by single women, who will receive training in hygiene and sanitation and on how to use the technology.

The technology will increase the households’ adaptive capacity and reduce their vulnerability to water-borne diseases. In addition, since Solvatten utilises a renewable energy source, it will function as a substitute for charcoal and kerosene, currently used for heating and water purifying. This will help reduce deforestation, reduce the burning of fossil fuels, and consequently reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Sustainable charcoal usage in Uganda

Charcoal is an important energy source for East Africans, vital for the daily household activities
of the poorest people. The high demand for firewood and charcoal is the main source of deforestation in Uganda. Currently charcoal production methods are highly inefficient, providing only 10-15% yields, usually illegal since indigenous forests are being used as raw material, and polluting as methane is emitted.

Green Resources AS from Norway will together with the local Busoga Forest Company install modern, energy efficient, and methane-free charcoal kilns that are capable of producing 7,500 tonnes of sustainable charcoal a year, enough to supply 9,000 households. With the kilns the project intends to more than double the efficiency of traditional charcoal production, implying that less biomass will be required to produce the same amount of charcoal.

The modern kilns will mitigate climate change in a number of ways. Most significantly they will prevent the release of methane from the carbonisation process. Methane is a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 21 times that of CO2. It is estimated that the project will save around 15,000 tonnes of CO2eq a year. The project also ensures that the charcoal will be produced using renewable biomass sources as timber and waste residues from Busoga Forest Company’s sustainable plantations will be used. In addition, the country’s natural sequestration will be enhanced as Green Resources AS has a policy to plant ten trees for every one harvested. Together this will help reduce deforestation charcoal in Uganda is currently produced using indigenous forests which are not replanted.

The projects above were financed by the Nordic Climate Facility, which is funded by the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) and jointly administered with NEFCO.

Read more about projects financed by the Nordic Climate Facility